


Faithful Only He

by Copperonthetongue



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Edd misses jon, Friendship, Gen, Jon Snow is Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Loyalty, Male Friendship, Mutiny, Nights Watch, Post-Betrayal, Superstition, black brothers, he does not want this job
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 12:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16702261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copperonthetongue/pseuds/Copperonthetongue
Summary: There is a spot in the courtyard at Castle Black where no matter how much snow falls the earth remains bare and black, and Edd knows the reason why.





	Faithful Only He

**Author's Note:**

> I always wanted to write something from Edd's perspective about Jons' murder and suddenly ending up Lord Commander. This is that story. Comments are love. :)

There’s a spot in the yard at Castle Black where no matter how cold it gets or how much snow falls, the ground never freezes. Howling wind and blowing snow, that one spot remains barren and dark, a silent accusation none of the Black Brothers can ignore.

 

Sometimes Edd stands on the walk just to stare at it, though he makes certain that when he does, he does his damnedest to look like he’s thinking hard on something, like Jon used to do, and not shitting his fucking pants in complete terror from the responsibility so suddenly thrust upon his totally un-fucking-prepared shoulders. If he didn’t love the broody fucking bastard so bloody much, Edd could truly hate Jon Snow for leaving him the Watch….. though he also couldn’t blame him.

Didn’t mean he liked it, though…that was for bloody sure and certain.

 

For all that he’d spent so much time staring at the bloody thing, Edd had never needed to ask why that barren little spot existed. Nobody in the Watch had really, it wasn’t exactly hard to guess and Edd is certain that every other Brother in Castle Black feels the same, although he’s also well ware that a good many probably do their best to pretend they don’t.

It doesn’t matter, because no matter how well the treacherous shits think they hide it…. they know why that spot is there and who caused it. They KNOW, and that’s all that matters to Edd. Edd is keenly aware of their fear, of their unease and there’s a savage (and admittedly petty) sort of joy that he takes from that knowledge. They SHOULD be afraid.

 

Edd can see that clawing but quiet terror in their eyes as plain as day; when the cowardly fucks actually have the balls to meet Edd’s eyes in the first place that is, which isn’t very often. Without Ser Alliser fucking Thorne in Edd’s Seven cursed backside there to drive them, his lackeys resolve crumbled to dust in the winter wind in short fucking order after they watched him dance the Gallows Jig. 

 

All that self righteous posturing had vanished, and by the time Jon Snow walked out of Castle Black a free man, Edd saw that they’d well and truly realized the gravity of the mistake they’d made. When Jon Snow left Castle Black he’d taken hope with him, and it’s absence was keenly felt by every man in the Watch. 

 

The traitors know what they did was wrong, they know it and they know the Gods were watching. That barren patch is a wordless condemnation and every living man of the watch knows it in his bones. This is the Long Night and the traitors had their sacred oath and slain their Lord Commander, despite their supposedly noble intentions they were no better than the filth that murdered Lord Commander Mormont, the same Lord Commander who had seen Jon Snow’s worth from the first and had taken him as his Steward to train him for the post he knew he would one day hold. 

Jon Snow was born to lead, and the old man had always known it. It was a shame Alliser Thorne had been too proud to see it. 

 

The men Thorne left behind are afraid, and Edd knows it. It's the type of blind animal panic that only comes when you know you’ve been separated from the herd and you hear a wolf howling in the distance. There’s a rift in the Watch now, and Edd doesn’t have the faintest fucking clue how to mend it, if it can even be mended at all. Jon would have known, but Edd isn’t Jon Snow. 

 

Edd can sense it though, the rift, and it feels as if it grows a little wider every time he walks the yard or stands atop the Wall itself. Before Jon Snow was murdered there’d always been a sort of long suffering sense of ‘ We’re all in this together’ that had filled the Watch, the Brothers all knew that no matter how shite their lives were there was always another poor unfortunate bastard right beside them that was suffering right along with them.

It helped make the burden easier to bear, knowing that you didn’t carry it alone.

 

That sense of community was gone now as if it had never been, and in it’s place was a low current of fear and shame on one side and rage and cold resentment on the other, tainting everyone and everything it touched. The cold outside Castle Black was bitter, aye…..but the chill INSIDE was far worse.

 

Men that had fought and fucked and served together for decades now found themselves on opposite sides of a line that could not be crossed. Those that had supported Thorne were now the odd men out, and unfortunately for them they realized too late that it wasn’t much to their liking. No matter how much he tried, Edd couldn’t muster up a drop of pity for the treacherous fucks, regardless. 

In the chaos after the Red Woman had raised Jon from the dead and Alliser Thorne’s plot blew up in his smug fuckin’ face many men who had once been boon companions, some even lovers abruptly discovered that those years of friendship and feeling were gone as if they had never been at all and they found themselves alone in the cold, with only their fellow traitors to warm them. 

 

Served them bloody well right in Edd’s mind, even though he knew that that wasn’t the way a commander should think. 

 

Serving under Jon Snow had taught him that much at least. A good commander tried to bind his people together, not divide them, he mended what was broken instead of nurturing division. Edd wasn’t Jon Snow, however and even Jon would have struggled with the mess currently dropped into Edd’s unwilling lap.

 

Unfortunately for him, Edd knew that there was bugger all that he could to mend the current situation. The simple truth was that hate was easier than fear to bear, and everybody in the Castle was shit their pants terrified of what was coming for them from beyond the Wall, including Edd himself. It had been easier to hide it though when Jon was Lord Commander. 

 

Everything had been easier when Jon was there, and that was one of the things Edd missed most about the man. 

 

There had always been something about Jon Snow that gave folk heart, even when times were at their worst. Especially when times were at their worst. 

 

Jon never gave up, Edd didn’t think the man even knew how if he were being brutally honest. From the first, Jon had been different from the rest of them, steady and as enduring as the Wall itself, and just as with the Wall they’d all found shelter in the long shadow he cast. 

 

Where Jon Snow went, he brought courage and hope with him, he made men want to be the best version of themselves just by being there and being the man he was. Edd suspected that was what made Thorne hate him so much to start with. 

 

Edd had known men like Alliser Thorne all his life, greedy and petty and always seething with jealousy towards better men. Thorne had been a man who craved authority like a drowning man craved air, proud and unbending and without an empathetic bone in his entire gods cursed body.

 

Oh, Edd could admit that Thorne could lead, sure enough, but he did it far differently than Jon…and the loyalty Thorne inspired was brittle, shattering under pressure like a poorly tempered blade. Thorne’s leadership had been pot metal compared to Jon’s Valyrian steel and the old man had known it and he’d hated Jon for it with all his heart and soul.

Jon’s murder had never been about the Watch, it had only ever been about Ser Alliser Thorne’s wounded pride.

 

Men were not willing to die for Jon Snow because of his blood or his name or the title he held or the honors he'd won, they were willing to die for him because they knew he would do the same for them. When they bled, so did he, and when they fought Jon fought beside them, bled beside them and he asked nothing of his men that he did not ask of himself. 

 

Edd would have followed Jon Snow though each of the Seven Hells with a smile on his face and a song in his heart if the man had asked it of him. He still would, even now…which was why Edd was still wearing his Seven cursed Commander’s cloak and trying to blunder his way through being Lord fucking Commander of the Night’s Watch; because Jon had asked it of him, and Edd had never been able to say ‘no' to Jon Snow. 

Jon had been their light in the darkness, the fire that kept back the endless chill that surrounded them and Thorne had snuffed him out like an alehouse candle in the name of his own pride and pettiness. 

 

Edd had never hated anyone or anything as much as he hated the men who had betrayed Jon Snow, there was no forgiveness in Edd’s soul for what the traitors had done to his best friend, none at all no matter how hard Edd tried; and he HAD tried. Perhaps Jon could have forgiven them, but Jon was a better man than Edd would ever be.

The others felt the same as Edd, Edd was certain of it and it was a festering wound that none of them would be forgetting any time soon…even without that barren spot as a reminder. 

For all that Thorne and his closest cronies had paid the ultimate price for what they’d done, there were many amongst the Black Brothers who, while not having put a knife in Jon’s heart personally, had known what was afoot and instead of giving a warning had chosen to remain silent, allowing events to play out as they would. That silence was as good as a blade in Edd’s mind.

Edd hated the traitors, hated each and every bloody one of them with a fervor that stole his breath away now and again, especially when he was forced to deal with them directly, and although it felt like salt in an open wound he did his best to treat them fairly ….because he was the Lord-Fucking-Commander now, curtesy of his utter arse of a best fucking friend and that was what he was supposed to do. It was what JON would do. 

Living up to Jon Snow’s example was in Edd’s opinion, an impossible fucking task. 

 

Jon Snow was the finest man Edd had ever known, and the fairest and that was not empty praise or flattery. Jon had given everything he had to the Watch, even when it gave him nothing in return. The mad bastard had actually come to join the Watch of his own free will, and not because he was trying to avoid the noose or some worse fate.

 

Jon had always done his duty, even when it wasn’t easy. Especially when it wasn’t easy. Only once had he ever faltered, and even then in the end he had chosen duty over pride. It was something Edd didn’t think he could have done were he in Jon’s place. The memory of it made Edd clench his jaw tight, and his throat burn with an ache that for once had nothing to do with the bitter cold.

 

Jon had always made his decisions for the greater good, always. Even when it would have been easier and less painful to take another path. There wasn’t a glimmer of pettiness in the man’s heart, not a selfish bone in his whole bloody body and the short-sighted cunts had killed him for it, had murdered him for trying to save all their stupid bloody lives. They weren’t the fucking ‘wildling watch’ they were the Night’s Watch and dusk was upon them …and the filthy traitors had murdered the only man with a torch to light their way. 

 

Jon had been RIGHT, he’d made the only choice that could be made and Thorne and his lackeys were just too gods damned stubborn to see it. They’d forgotten their true duty in favor of old enmity. Jon had not. Could not. 

 

The Watch existed for one purpose and one purpose alone: to keep the watch around the clock so that the Kingdoms of Men would have some sort of warning when the Long Night began again, a warning they hadn’t had the first time and which might perhaps give them a chance to save themselves. 

 

Closing his eyes for a moment, Edd allowed himself to remember Hardhome and the White Walkers, picture the endless sea of the hungry dead and feel again the creeping horror of watching the fallen rise again in service of the Others, empty vessels for the Night’s King’s loathing of all that lives and breathes.   
Edd was no master tactician, that was the Gods’ own truth but even he could see that if they’d left the wildlings behind the wall they would only have become more arrows in the Night King’s quiver, ready to rain down on anything that drew breath in the world in a hateful torrent. 

 

The fact of the matter was that the living were already badly outmatched as it was, they needed every beating heart and strong arm they could find for the battle that was to come and Thorne had been willing to cast those beating hearts and and fighting hands aside without the slightest hesitation, and when Jon had refused to allow it the mad bastard had murdered him in cold blood.

 

Edd opened his eyes again and stared once more at the little patch of ever-clear earth where Thorne and his band of murderous cunts had stabbed Jon Snow to death, where he’d bled out his life alone on the snow. If not for the Red Woman and her Lord of Light’s impossible magic the hope of every man, woman and child in all the world would have died right there in the snow with Jon.

 

Edd kept to the Seven, himself but he didn’t have to follow the old ways to know that the barren earth remembered what had been done, the innocent blood that had been spilt even though they’d had long ago removed the more physical evidence of that night’s wicked work.

The earth remembered, and so did Edd and every other man in Castle Black every time they walked the yard and looked at it.

 

Edd took a slow breath of the painfully cold air and tried his level best to quell the fresh fury rising in his throat and twisting at his guts like an angry shadow-cat as he remembered how it felt to look at Jon’s corpse laying on the bloody snow. One breath, two…and at last, Edd gives up and retreats to the warmth of the castle itself, to the chamber that is now his own and settles himself by the fire that blazes in the hearth. 

 

Edd had seen dead men all his life, he’d killed his fair share of them himself. He’d seen dead friends, dead lovers, dead children. Edd and the Stranger were well acquainted with one another. The world wasn’t a kind place for the lowborn orphan Edd had been, and that meant that their lives were more often than not brief and brutal. 

Edd had loved, had lost and had somehow lived through everything his unlucky life had thrown at him out of pure stubbornness and grim tenacity and before that night in the snow he’d thought himself a wise man for it. 

He’d been wrong, because nothing in Edd’s experience had prepared him for what he’d felt when he’d first set eyes on Jon, laying there dead on the bloody snow, that gods cursed fucking sign hanging above him, empty eyes staring at the sky while Ghost howled his grief. 

 

Edd still sees it every night in his dreams, but in his dreams, the Red Woman’s magic doesn’t work, Jon doesn’t get up again. He remains empty and cold on that table and there’s no reunion, no hug or happy ending.

In Edd’s nightmares Jon is dead and gone forever, just like Edd’s Mum, just like his Da, gone and never coming back and every night Edd kills Alliser-fucking-Thorne all over again for what he did and Edd takes a tiny measure of comfort in crushing the arrogant prick’s smug fucking face into a bloody, pulpy, ruin every single night for taking away the only thing that Edd has ever truly believed in. 

Jon Snow.

 

Jon is alive, aye, that's true enough and Edd is grateful beyond words for it, no question… but he’s gone regardless and none of those that remain behind at Castle Black are happy about it, even the ones who had kept mum about Thorne’s attempted mutiny. 

For all that the traitors may not have liked him, even they had to admit that Jon was a competent commander and now that Thorne was dead and Jon had departed as well the traitors suddenly found themselves in the unenviable position of being directly responsible for how fucked the rest of the Watch felt they all were in Jon’s absence. Edd didn’t envy them that position in the slightest.

 

If Edd weren’t so bloody fucking terrified of what was coming he might have been able to enjoy their misery a bit more but even sitting in front of a roaring fire did not entirely cut the chill that now hung in the air, unnatural and pervasive. 

The Long Night was coming, and it brought dread and murderous cold with it, and Edd knew that there was nothing that could be done to stop it. The Great War that loomed in their immediate future and without Jon to give them the courage to face it morale was dangerously shaky on all sides….but somehow they were holding fast and that was all because of Jon and what he’d given them while he led them. 

Edd sighed softly and shut his eyes for a long moment before rubbing his face with both hands and looking back to the crackling fire. One day, if they survived what was to come there would be a reckoning for what had been done to Jon Snow, Edd swore it on all he loved but for now it would wait in favor of focusing on their common enemy.

 

It was what Jon would do, and that was good enough for Edd.


End file.
